Front cover image for Rubble, Ruins and Romanticism : Visual Style, Narration and Identity in German Post-War Cinema

Rubble, Ruins and Romanticism : Visual Style, Narration and Identity in German Post-War Cinema

Traditional criticism on German post-war cinema tends to define rubble films as simplistic texts of low artistic quality which serve to reaffirm the spectator's image of him or herself as »a good German± during »bad times±. Yet this study asserts that some rubble films are actually informed by a type of visual and narrative Romantic discourse which aims at provoking a »critical discussion± on German national identity and its reconstruction in the aftermath of the Third Reich. Considering the lack of previous analyses with regard to the key aspects of Romantic visual style, narration and litera
eBook, English, 2014
Transcript, Bielefeld, 2014
Criticism, interpretation, etc
1 online resource (321 pages)
9783839421833, 3839421837
1042086282
Cover Rubble, Ruins and Romanticism ; Table of Contents; Acknowledgements ; Table of Figures ; Introduction ; 1. The Neoformalist Approach: Questions of Form and Style ; Film as an Aesthetic System ; The Result of Construction: Meaning ; 2. German Romanticism: The Stylistic Origin of Rubble Films. Leading Stylistic and Narrative Romantic Devices Ruins and Fragment: A Romantic Discourse on Crisis ; 3. The Romantic Discourse in a Selection of Rubble Films ; Rubble Films: Common Features and Main Differences ; The Romantic Discourse. The Murderers Are Among Us (1946): A Break with Nazi Cinema? Film Without a Name (1947/48): Irony Shall Help Us! ; The Blum Affair (1948): Engel's Critical View on the Past ; The 'Last' Illusion (1948/49): Double Views and Mistaken Perception. Second Hand Destiny (1949): The Demonic Bourgeois The Lost (1950/51): No Escape? ; Conclusion ; Literature